The shipping of packages, including, but not limited to, letters, parcels, containers, and boxes of any shape and size, is big business, one that grows annually because of online shopping. Every day, people and businesses from diverse locations throughout the world ship millions of packages. Efficient and precise delivery of such packages to their correct destinations entails complex logistics.
Most package shippers currently use barcodes on packages to track movement of the packages through their delivery system. Each barcode stores information about its package; such information may include the dimensions of the package, its weight and destination. When shipping personnel pick up a package, he or she scans the barcode to sort the package appropriately. The delivery system uses this scanned information to track movement of the package.
For example, upon arriving at the city of final destination, a package rolls off a truck or plane on a roller belt. Personnel scan the package, and the system recognizes that the package is at the city of final destination. The system assigns the package to an appropriate delivery truck with an objective of having delivery drivers operating at maximum efficiency. An employee loads the delivery truck, scanning the package while loading it onto the truck. The scanning operates to identify the package as “out for delivery”. The driver of the delivery truck also scans the package upon delivery to notify the package-delivery system that the package has reached its final destination.
Such a package-delivery system provides discrete data points for tracking packages, but it has its weaknesses: there can be instances where the position or even the existence of the package is unknown. For example, a package loader may scan a package for loading on delivery truck A, but the package loader may place the package erroneously on delivery truck B. In the previously described package-delivery system, there is no way to prevent or quickly discover this error.
Further, package-delivery systems can be inefficient. Instructions often direct the person who is loading a delivery truck to load it for optimized delivery. This person is usually not the delivery person. Thus, his or her perception of an efficient loading strategy may differ greatly from that of the person unloading the vehicle. Further, different loaders may pack a vehicle differently. Additionally, the loader may toss packages into the truck or misplace them. Packages may also shift during transit. Time expended by drivers searching for packages in a truck is expended cost and an inefficiency that financially impacts the shippers.
Industry has made attempts to track packages efficiently. One such attempt places RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips on the packages. Such a solution requires additional systems and hardware. For instance, this solution requires the placement of an RFID tag on every package and the use of readers by package loaders or the placement of readers throughout the facility to track packages.